Wood Barn

We completed the garden landscaping and were putting the finishing touches in when I realised I had to do something about our gas barbecue. Its quite large and if I’m honest, a bit ugly when not in use. It’s fine uncovered but with the black waterproof cover on, it’s a large black lump. We couldn’t really wheel it away either as we neither had anywhere to store it and lots of gravel made it impossible to drag anyway. Not the biggest of issues but kinda annoying and needed a solution.

This time, searching online proved fruitless and unhelpful. If I’m honest, I was a bit stumped and out of ideas. A friend came down to stay and I asked him if he could come up with something. He stepped out, looked at the patio and immediately said “Why don’t you just build a wooden cover for it?”

I felt a bit stupid for not thinking of it myself but of course, why not? I set about having a think about it and drew up some ideas. It would need to be waterproof, allow air to circulate, blend in to the surroundings and be easily movable. After a few failed drawings I came up with the design.

As you’d expect, nothing revolutionary, a box frame, a breathable membrane wrapped around the frame, leftover larch cladding and a sloping roof. To solve the ease of moving, a set of casters on the bottom.

As it turned out, it was a bit more complicated than it sounds. The materials were all left overs from other projects. The membrane and cladding from the workshop build and the frame from the workshop bench build. The only new purchase was for the casters to wheel it around and the handles to grab and maneuver the whole thing.

The tricky bit was the frame itself. Getting each side true and square was trickier than it should have been but eventually, it all came together nicely.

As luck would have it, my measurements were tighter than I’d meant them to be and the cover fits over the BBQ perfectly with virtually no play either side. The only error I made was to not fix the casters strongly enough at the bottom. A quick mod was required but took a total of 10 minutes for all 4 wheels and is now much stronger and secure.

Now the cladding has silvered to look the same as the side of the barn, it blends in beautifully and doesn’t catch the eye at all. Using the BBQ is easy as wheeling the cover to the side takes all of 30 seconds. If only I’d have come up with the idea myself!

Cost:- Casters (heavy duty, Screwfix) £45, Handles (Etsy) £15 – Total £60